springtime notes(can't call it winter here)

18 years ago

Our temps have been in the 60s again lately, which as usual is really enjoyable to be out in, but who knows what kind of intricate natural rhythms are getting screwed up as a result.

The tips of the sassafras are greening, with buds swelling as well. While there is just enough cold to leave a thin skin of ice on standing water, it's usually gone by mid morning. I have spotted several water striders out and about, as well as a few larger crawdads meandering about the shallows. Still too early for the big rush of egg-bearing females but they would get fooled too if it stayed this warm for a month or so. Oh and snakes! The count is up to three road-kills: a larger rat snake, a small northern water snake which got flattened crossing the road between ditches, and a garter. This is January, our typically coldest month. I have not kept exact numbers but I am pretty sure that the number of days over 60 degrees has got to be somewhere around 7 or 8, and they are not all lumped together during one freaky warm spell but instead spread out over the entire month. At one point there, my 10-day forecast had every day at or above 50 degrees and not a single nighttime temp below freezing. I think I saw one night at 34 and that was it.

And the biggie: yesterday I spotted an eagle out over the reclaimed strip mine lakes north of here. This is exciting since they are still in the process of repopulating this area. A pair had a nest just to the west of my parent's house the last few years and I was hoping something similar would happen here since we have the lakes. BUT for some unknown reason the DNR took out the few lone oaks that dotted the areas around the water. There were only three or four mature trees anywhere around this old mine area and these would have been perfect for ospreys and eagles to perch on after snagging a fish. Now there is nothing and I wonder what they will do. I saw an osprey actually catch a large fish last year. I couldn't help but whoop and holler like a complete idiot at the time...firstly, you don't just casually glance up and see your first local osprey hovering overhead taking YOU in and not have a visceral reaction. Unless you don't give a rip about nature in general and in which case you won't be here reading this anyway....ANd then as if to add an exclamation point to the whole experience it actually plunged into the water and caught a fish. Right there. But as soon as it had its catch I began wondering where it would go to eat it now that the trees were gone. I never did see it land, it just headed due north. Maybe they will go to ground if nothing else is close??

And since both are fish lovers I do wonder how the eagle and the osprey will get along....

That's it (and plenty of it) for now

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (4)

gardener_sandy
18 years ago
Wow, DirtGirl! That osprey sighting must have been quite a thrill. I've never seen one and I'm jealous! We have a small retention pond just across from our front yard and we see Great Blue Herons there along with assorted ducks, geese and other water lovers but it's too small for ospreys or eagles. At least I've never seen any there.

Our so-called winter has been very mild, too. Only a few times this month has the nighttime temperature been below freezing with the days mostly in the upper 50s and 60s and we haven't had any snow since mid-December. We don't usually get a lot of snow but tend to have freezing rain and sleet instead. Personally, I'm glad we haven't had any of that! I agree that there are delicate balances that are probably being messed up this winter. My MIL's saucer magnolia is trying hard to open it's buds. It doesn't usually bloom till late March. Maybe February will be a real bear of a wintery month this year. Some people think it's the longest month of the year anyway. LOL

Enjoy the mild weather while you can. I suspect we'll get payback for it.

Sandy
catherinet
18 years ago
I'm not worried about the weather being funky hurting the balance. Because funky weather is part of the balance.
I'm just glad we had a freezing cold spell at the beginning of winter. Hopefully that kills off the mosquitoes for next summer.
Dirtgirl, why don't you call the DNR and ask them why they took those trees down? I know they can't put them back up, but it would just be nice to know their reasoning. And then ask them if they're aware that now the big guys won't have anywhere to nest there.
How cool to see an Osprey.......and then to see it take a fish!
We're having a warm spell too. Hopefully this doesn't mean we'll get a bad storm in March.
My 2 little carolina wrens are still sleeping at night in a little tuck in the tarp over the front of the chicken coop. One night, only one of the was there, and I was worried. But the next night the other one was back.
Speaking of carolina wrens......let me try to post a pic I took last year of some carolina wren babies in a nest in my barn. In fact, these might be the ones sleeping near the coop now.
I can't wait to hear those chorus frogs and peepers in the spring.
Here's the babies:
Related Discussions
RMG Winter Sowers Roll Call
Q
Comments (121)
I was looking over my germination records, since it's too cold to go outside and do any gardening this morning, and thought I would post what has germinated for me so far, so here goes: (32 containers out of 68 sown) PERENNIALS Alyssum 'Golden Queen'- WS 1/11 and 2/5, germ 3/1 and 3/8 Dianthus knappii - WS 1/11, germ 3/8 Lychnis 'Lumina Bronzeleaf Red' - WS 1/19, germ 3/8 Penstemon pinifolius 'Compactum' - WS 1/11, germ 3/28 (1st seeds harvested from my own garden to germinate, YIPPEE!) Scabiosa 'Moon Dance' - WS 2/25, germ 4/8 ANNUALS African Daisy 'Buff Beauty' - WS 2/18, germ 3/18 Alyssum 'Apricot Shades' - WS 2/5, germ 3/8 Amaranth 'Pygmy Torch' - WS 2/18, germ 3/14 Calendula 'Pink Surprise' - WS 2/18, germ 2/28 Calendula 'Apricot Daisy' - WS 2/25, germ 3/14 Dianthus 'Ideal Select Red' - WS 2/5, germ 3/8 Gazania 'Daybreak Hyb. Mix' - WS 3/12, germ 3/24 Gazania Daybreak Bronze' - WS 3/12, germ 3/21 Gomphrena 'QIS Carmine' - WS 3/15, germ 4/8 Millet 'Jester' - WS 3/28, germ 4/8 Petunia 'Prism Sunshine Hyb.' - WS 2/25, germ 3/22 Verbena 'Amarillo' - WS 3/12, germ 4/2 VEGGIES & HERBS Cilantro - WS 2/18, germ 3/18 Dill - WS 2/18, germ 3/18 Lavender - WS 1/27, germ. 3/16 Marjoram - WS 2/5, germ 3/8 Oregano - WS 1/19, germ 3/14 Sage - WS 2/25, germ 3/27 Spearmint - WS 1/15, germ 3/23 Broccoli 'Early Purple Sprouting' - WS 2/5 (2 cont.), germ 2/28 and 3/5 Lettuce 'Black Seeded Simpson' - WS 2/18, germ 3/1 Lettuce 'Buttercrunch' - WS 1/30, germ 3/8 Lettuce 'Jericho' - WS 1/30, germ 2/28 Lettuce 'New Red Fire' - WS 1/30, germ 3/8 Lettuce 'Parris Island Cos' - WS 2/18, germ 3/1 I noticed a lot of folks have poppies up, and realize that I hadn't sown those, so I did them this past week. Hopefully, they will pop up soon. I sowed the golden one that you sent me, Steve, and a cream colored one called 'Milkmaid'. The other thing I noticed that other folks have germination on is chives. This is my second year to WS them, and I did the regular kind, and the garlic chives. Neither one is up so far. Maybe someone can bring an established clump to the plant swap, if I don't get any germination. Most of the things I'm waiting on are perennials, with a few annuals that were just recently sown. Oh, and my wintersown tomatoes. I'm going to wait another week or two, then sow my zinnias and basils, and then I will be officially done wintersowing. From there on out, everything else will get direct sown into the veggie garden. Anyone else finished? Or just getting started? Bonnie
...See More
Just a note to say-won't be here much for a while.
Q
Comments (32)
Wow, def. touched a nerve here! Great thoughts everybody. Tex, your open plains background and upbringing have shaped your attitudes and understanding of wooded country-no fault in that. I might have difficulty identifying some poisonous (or so-called poisonous) plant species in your area. Doesn't make me a dummy, nor does your relative lack of experience with the plant I mentioned make you one. It's just down to what set of experiences and so on we had and were exposed to earlier in our lives. As to the various generations' attributes, I'm torn between bleak pessimism and guarded optimism when it comes to "the millennials". I do like that these people-as a group-are far less hung up on race, sexual orientation, and a handful of other innate human attributes than probably any other previous generation. There's reason for hope there. But I'm also right there with Gal, wondering about the parents of all these people, instilling fear at every turn. I thin it is that fear that will be our undoing. Take the San Bernardino massacre, a most heinous occurrence. Yet it has zero chance of upending us, destroying our country, ending ur way of life, any of the pablum you hear coming out of various fools who think they should be the president of this country. Utterly out of proportion to the actual threat. Since that happened, hundreds-perhaps thousands of Americans have been shot to death. But to hear these idiots on TV tell it, we've never had our backs against the wall like we do now. Such nonsense, yet it is driving the policy debate. The couple who wouldn't let their boy play in the woods out back are, IK'm afraid, of the same age class as I am. They did come from a more urban background and it is that factor I think that has driven their utter estrangement from nature. I was lucky to have grown up where and when I did. But what's the use of "being lucky" if later, all you see around you is ignorance? In fact, it has been my own generation and perhaps the ones immediately following that called for "tough on crime", for "truth in sentencing" and all the rest. Really, the biggest bunch of babies and hypocrites I've ever seen. It's as if nationally, we've suffered some kind of mass amnesia, forgetting all the things we ourselves were doing just the other year. So dumb. And all of this fear-based crap is what we've got now for a society. I can't come right out and say it but some of the things I've heard people right around my own age saying are just too stupid to believe. In a way, I think of it as, when we were young, there were the people that seemed cool but they were just there out of peer pressure or doing what they perceived as what you should do. Then there were the true believers, the actual trailblazers, the folks who actually lead us all to innovation and new ways of thinking about things. But you mostly don't gain any advantage by being one of these folks, your head tending to get used as a battering ram to open doors for those too timid to do the work themselves. But in general, I've got very mixed feelings about where we're headed. One thing of real concern though is this estrangement from nature. It's going to do no good to have little "preserves" where future people can look at the collection of trees or whatever. The battle will already be lost by that time. +oM
...See More
Springtime Weather Here This Week
Q
Comments (15)
Thank you all for your Comments. My first iris opened yesterday, Nancy...one I moved out last year, but left a piece in the ground (not intentionally); that kind of wind is miserable too, isn't it? I have put about 20 hours so far, but I am really glad to be where I am now. Julia, Those snowball bushes put on a much lighter show in the fall...with blooms that are like one of the flatter hydrangea varieties. Unfortunately, I I am pretty sure some surgery will be involved Maybe it will be an arthroscopic one rather than a bigger problem. Sherry, a lot of the work was done last year, and I am so glad I did it, now I'm glad....then not so much. WE have had a lot of pleasure out of those trees, Mantis, Thank you.
...See More
Who to call? This can't be good...
Q
Comments (2)
Yep. You won't likely get a window or door company out there to fix or check a door that isn't theirs. I'd look for a good handyman to look it over and band-aid it if you need more time.
...See More
dirtgirl
Original Author
18 years ago
Good grief how could I forget the FROGS?? Gotta add that to my list--have heard a couple of lone calls out in the slough, and just yesterday heard the first of the chuckle frogs (leopard frogs I guess) which sound as though they are saying 'ho ho ho ho ho ha ha ha ha ha, yup yup yup'
I should try to find a link to that and post it.
ok, this is the long way around to it, but here is a link to one of our common spring/early summer sounds...leopard frogs (chucklers)
http://allaboutfrogs.org/files/sounds/sleapard.au

And then here is a link (copy paste if you will) to the sounds of our other springtime serenaders, the stuff we go to sleep with about the time the windows start staying open all night. Ahhh, Cathy, hearing this is about as sweet and refreshing as seeing those wonderful little gaping mouths on your wren babies.
Spring just can't get here fast enough!!!

http://www.habitatproject.org/frogs/Sounds/WesternChorusFrog_Call.mp3
ericwi
18 years ago
We seem to be having an odd winter here in Madison as well. But not as warm as you, dirtgirl. Today we had sunshine and mid 40's, but there was frost on the car windshield when I got up this morning. I think it gets down to the mid 20's at night. We still have some small piles of snow, left over from the last storm. More typical January weather would be mid 20's during the day, and down near zero at night. I am not hearing much complaining about the weather, though. Last night we watched a news story about some local construction projects that are ahead of schedule, and under budget, due to the fair weather we are having.

springtime notes(can't call it winter here)

Comments (4)

gardener_sandy

catherinet

Related Discussions

dirtgirl
Original Author

ericwi

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

springtime notes(can't call it winter here)

Comments (4)

gardener_sandy

catherinet

Related Discussions

dirtgirlOriginal Author

ericwi

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

dirtgirl
Original Author